Anastasia Bickel has just been named the 2019 winner of the Deutsche Oper Berlin Award by the Opera Foundation for Young Australians and will be joining the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a Young Artist for their 2020-2021 season.

She has recently returned to Australia after completing a one year contract as the mezzo/contralto young artist in the OperAvenir program at Theater Basel, Switzerland. During her time in the ensemble of Theater Basel, Anastasia performed the roles of Dinah in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, Tisbe in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata, 2. Magd in Strauss’ Elektra, Anneli in Fujikura’s Der Goldkäfer, and the contralto role in Christian Zehnder’s Murmeli. She also performed in a series of concerts of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, in which she sang Erda/Flosshilde in Das Rheingold, Schwertleite/Grimgerde in Die Walküre, Erda in Siegfried, and First Norn/Flosshilde in Die Götterdämmerung.

Anastasia has performed professionally as alto soloist in over twenty oratorios, including Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Newcastle University Choir (2016), Vivaldi’s Gloria at the Brisbane Baroque Festival (2016), Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with the Noosa Chorale (2016) and Handel’s Messiah with the Queensland Bach Society (2015). Operatic performances in Australia include Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring for the Queensland Conservatorium/Brisbane Festival (2016), Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at the Queensland Conservatorium (2015), Third Nymph in Purcell’s King Arthur at the Brisbane Baroque Festival (2016), and the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (2014) and at the Mornington Peninsula Summer Music Festival (2014). At the Lisa Gasteen National Opera School, she performed scenes from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin as Olga and Wagner’s Götterdämmerung as Flosshilde (2014) and Verdi’s Falstaff as Mistress Quickly (2016).

As a student, Anastasia was a semi-finalist and prize winner in the Australian Singing Competition three times (2013, 2015, and 2016), was selected to represent Australia in the final rounds of the Belvedere International Singing Competition twice (2016 and 2017), and achieved further competition success, including: the Queensland Wagner Society Award (2016) for the singer with the “best potential for a career in Wagner and Strauss”; Third Prize in the National Liederfest (2017); Second Prize at the MTO German-Australian Opera Grant (2016); and the Lyceum Club Prize (2016) for the “best meritorious postgraduate singer at the Conservatorium.”

Anastasia graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Classical Voice (Advanced Performance) from the Queensland Conservatorium in 2016. She speaks fluent German, intermediate French and Italian, and has studied Russian in St Petersburg.

In 2019, Anastasia will return on full scholarship to the Lisa Gasteen National Opera School for the third time in November.